


Here I Lay My Burden Down

by tellthenight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12.23, 12.23 coda, Angst, Coping, Gen, coda fic, season 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 13:38:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11510538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tellthenight/pseuds/tellthenight
Summary: Coda to 12.23





	Here I Lay My Burden Down

**Author's Note:**

> This is a coda fic for 12.23. The fic picks up from the end of that episode, so the premise of this fic leaves us where the episode left us: Cas is dead. If that idea upsets you, this fic is not for you.
> 
> Also, this can read gen or deancas. I know which way I wrote it, but read it how you like.

Dean took him home in the backseat of the Impala, Sam in the front like always. If he pretended Cas was sleeping it felt the same--just the three of them on their way home from any other hunt. But this hunt was for Lucifer and it ended just like the last time.

Sam eyed him, but Dean stared straight for home. They could figure it out when they were safe.  _ When are we ever safe… _

Dean opened the back door on Sam’s side, careful not to jostle Cas. He held him under the arms, but then Cas’s head lulled back and Dean caught him.

“Let me help,” Sam said.

Dean breathed through his nose and back out. “I got him.”

“Dean--”

“I got him, Sam!” It came out blistering even though he didn’t mean it that way. Or maybe he did--if Sam didn’t know by now that Cas wasn’t his to carry, that was his own damn fault.

He passed the map table and the kitchen for his own room. He laid Cas in the center of his bed, arms splayed at first until Dean repositioned them. He straightened Cas’s coat, but it was all wrong. Cas never had his trench on straight at the shoulders, collar perfect, straight lines--hell, it was at least a size too big on him. Why Jimmy even had that coat, much less wore it--

Dean swallowed and kept the tears back. The trench coat hadn’t fit in life, so why did it matter at all when Cas lay dead in it?

Dean knelt next to him to sit watch.

Sam knelt next to him sometime later. Dean shrugged his hand off.

“We need to burn him,” Sam said. “Hunter’s funeral.”

“Not yet.”

“Not til Jody gets here at least. And Claire.”

Dean cleared his throat. “You got ahold of her?”

“Yep. And Donna, Alex, Garth-- everyone I could think of. They’ll be here by tomorrow.”

Dean looked back Cas’s slack face. He couldn’t bear to close Cas’s eyes all the way. He thought he needed the blue to stay close, but without their underlying fire Dean was lost. Cas was gone and what was left of Jimmy remained.

“You want to eat? I can make…” Sam’s words drifted as Dean shook his head. “I’ll come back later.”

Dean’s knees ached. His hips, his back, every joint screamed for relief, but he stayed on his knees, eyes fixed on Cas’s face.

 

*******

 

“How long do you need?” Sam, on his knees again.

Dean couldn’t have taken his eyes off Cas for anything. Any second he’d gasp a breath and come back, wide eyed and wondering how long he’d been gone.  _ Any second… _

“We all loved him,” Jody was saying. She touched Cas’s cold hand. “He would have done anything for you.”

“He did.” It played over and over in Dean’s head, the way Cas had pushed forward to take on Lucifer in his stead. The next moments slowed incredibly--his relief at seeing Cas come through the other-worldly portal stretched over long moments, but not long enough. The angel blade plunged through and Cas--

Jody held him tight against her as his chest broke in a sob.

 

*******

 

“It’s time.”

Dean shook his head. “I haven’t figured it out yet, Sammy. I just--I just need a little more time.”

“It’s time now, Dean.”

Dean shook his head, vision blurring. “I’ll figure it out. I need--”

“Dean.”

Dean sucked in air--not enough for a real breath, just enough to keep from collapsing. “Time! I need time!” He tried to heave his body up from kneeling, but his legs shook and the floor tilted. When he hit something solid he cried out and tried to push away all the helping hands.

“Don’t help me--help Cas!”

“It’s too late.”

Dean had never heard Claire speak so gently before. Claire spit words and punctuated with her eyes.  _ Gentle _ had been crushed out of her in childhood and that was their common language.

“Chuck brings him back,” Dean said, hoarse and dry. “Always.”

Claire crouched in front of him. Her braid swayed back and forth on one side and her usually precise eyeliner was smeared under her eyes. “Looks like that deal’s over,” she said. “We gotta take care of hi--the body.”

Dean looked up at Cas on the bed. From the floor, he could only see Cas’s hand, the curve of his forehead and the line of his nose. He didn’t have to close his eyes to remember the severe glare Cas used to wear like armor, the way he smiled with one corner of his mouth rising first, The way he’d looked as he’d gone fiercely after Lucifer.

Dean hunched over like he could collapse straight into the growing pit in his center. He longed for it-- _take me too_ \-- but he had to stay. _Research._ _Work the problem._

“He has to have a body to come back to,” Dean said.

“What?”  _ Sam. _

“Who knows how long it’s going to be.” Dean pushed up on his hands. “He needs a box. I know where to put him, we just need a box.”

Sam appeared next to Claire, and Dean fractured further when he saw the sorrow in Sam’s eyes. “Dean, he’s gone.”

“Yeah, but where?”

Sam blinked before his eyes flicked to Claire and she looked down. Sam looked up, conversing with his eyes before the hands at Dean’s back moved and Jody sat on the floor between him and Cas. 

“He’s dead, Dean,” she said.

“We don’t know where angels go after taking a blade.”

“None of them have ever come back,” Sam said.

Dean lowered his head. Sam was right, but Cas always came back.

“Dean, you’ve been sitting with him for days. Don’t you think it’s time?”

Dean grunted, almost a growl before he exploded. ““I sat with you for days and then brought you back my goddamn self. Me, Sam. ME! If you don’t think I’d do the same for Cas--”

“Make a demon deal? Curse yourself? “ Sam scoffed and shook his head, but he lost the hard tone as he spoke again. “Where have we ever gotten with any of that? What’s the point of having him back if you’d be gone?”

“We’re not leaving him behind.” Dean hung his head. Just because he didn’t have the answer yet didn’t mean they could all give up. He tried to push himself up to stand again, but a firm hand clamped on his shoulder and held him in place. He looked up at Jody with the intention to fight, but the look on her face softened him again.

“Think about what happened to my son,” she said. “They had him walking around like everything was normal, and I didn’t care because I had him back. But look how that turned out.” She gulped and tears ran freely down her face. “You and Sam and Cas keep coming back, but that’s… that’s over, right? That’s what the reaper said?” She looked to Sam and he nodded.

“For us, yeah,” Dean said. “But Cas isn’t human. Angels have… can…”

The way they all looked at him with abject pity in their eyes grew the pit in his stomach. He couldn’t be wrong about this--not about Cas.

“He’s coming back,” Dean said weakly.

Claire’s gaze flitted to the bed then back at him like she couldn’t look too long at the body of her long gone father. Sam looked down and his shoulders shrank. Jody was the only one able to look him in the eye.

“You know he isn’t,” she said.

Denial was on his lips, but when Dean tried to say something no sound would come. He tried not to panic, but it swelled in him until Sam realized what was going on and pulled him into a hard hug.

“I know,” Sam said. “I’ll get a box, and we’ll figure it out.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr where I am also @tellthenight


End file.
